NDT Procedure Management Software in the USA

Controlled NDT procedures and techniques with revisions and approvals. Request a demo. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Quote on request.

Procedure control for US inspection companies

If you run an NDT company in the United States, your procedures are checked by more people than almost any other document you own. A refinery owner-user on the Houston Ship Channel wants them in the pre-job submittal package. The Authorized Inspector on a Section VIII shop job wants to see the one referenced on the traveller. A pipeline operator’s construction inspector wants the one your crew is actually using on the spread. An aerospace prime’s auditor wants to see who approved it, when, and what changed since the last audit.

Each of those people is asking the same three questions: is this the current revision, was it approved by someone qualified to approve it, and can you show me the history? When procedures live in a shared drive and email, the honest answer is often “give me an hour”.

The Procedures app in the Atlantis NDT ERP is built to make that answer immediate. It is a controlled procedure register with a draft, submitted, reviewed, approved and published workflow, locked approved revisions, a snapshot of every revision, and email reminders to approvers. It sits in the same system as your jobs, technician certifications, equipment and reports, so the procedure your Level III approves is the procedure your crews and reports reference.

This page looks at procedure control through a US lens: the ASME and API codes that dictate procedure content, how Gulf Coast owner-users approve contractor procedures, radiation safety procedures under the NRC and Agreement States, and the extra rigour of aerospace NAS 410 work. Atlantis NDT has its home base in Houston, so these are the conditions we know best.

ASME Section V and the codes behind your procedures

For most US NDT companies, ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section V is the backbone of the procedure library. Article 1 makes the point directly: when the referencing code section requires a written procedure, the examination is performed to that procedure, and where the referencing code calls for it, the procedure is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Inspector.

The method articles then set out what the procedure must contain. Article 4 for ultrasonic examination of welds lists procedure requirements as essential and nonessential variables — weld configuration, thickness range, angles, search unit characteristics, instrument, calibration, scanning technique and more. Change an essential variable and the procedure has to be revised and, where required, requalified. Article 2 for radiography, Article 6 for penetrant and Article 7 for magnetic particle each carry their own written procedure requirements.

The referencing code decides when those procedures are needed and what the acceptance criteria are: Section VIII Division 1 for pressure vessels, Section I for power boilers, ASME B31.3 for process piping, B31.1 for power piping. The same UT technique may carry different acceptance criteria depending on which book the client’s job falls under.

The Procedures app records exactly that on each procedure: the method, the scope and thickness range, the material, the applicable standard such as ASME Section V, and the acceptance criteria reference. When ASME issues a new edition on its regular publication cycle and a client moves to it, you can filter the register by standard, see every affected procedure, and push each through a new revision with the old one kept as a snapshot.

In-service work: API 510, 570, 653 and pipelines

A large share of US NDT work is in-service inspection for owner-users running refineries, chemical plants, terminals and pipelines. Here the API inspection codes set the frame: API 510 for pressure vessels, API 570 for piping systems and API 653 for aboveground storage tanks. The owner-user’s inspection programme decides what gets examined, and the NDT contractor supplies procedures that fit the owner’s specifications, which usually sit on top of ASME Section V.

Pipeline work adds its own layer. API 1104 governs welding of pipelines and related facilities and expects nondestructive testing to follow written procedures, with the operating company able to require the contractor to show that its procedures produce acceptable results. Federal pipeline safety regulations under PHMSA, in 49 CFR Part 192 for gas and Part 195 for hazardous liquids, require nondestructive testing of welds to be performed in accordance with written procedures and by people trained and qualified in those procedures.

That regulatory line matters. When a PHMSA inspector or an operator’s auditor looks at a weld record, the chain runs from the weld, to the report, to the procedure revision, to the person who performed it. If the procedure revision cannot be produced, the chain breaks.

The Procedures app keeps that chain intact. Each revision is locked on approval and preserved as a snapshot. The NDT Reports app captures the procedure and standard reference on every report. The Certificates app records the technician’s certification. Together they let you answer the question “which procedure, which revision, which technician” from records, not memory, for jobs on the Gulf Coast, in the Permian or anywhere else your crews travel.

How Gulf Coast owner-users approve contractor procedures

Anyone who has mobilised a crew into a refinery in Pasadena, Baytown, Beaumont, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge or Corpus Christi knows the routine. Before work starts, the owner-user or the EPC’s document control asks for your procedures. Their inspection group reviews them against the site’s own specifications. Comments come back. You revise and resubmit. Only then does the procedure get the client’s acceptance and your crew can start.

That routine creates three recurring headaches:

• Client-specific variants. Your base RT procedure is fine for general work, but one refiner wants a specific IQI placement note and another wants its own acceptance table referenced. Soon you have several near-identical procedures and nobody is sure which one went to which client.
• Comment loops. Comments arrive in email, get fixed in a Word file, and the history of what was changed in response to which comment disappears.
• Turnaround pressure. Spring and fall turnaround seasons compress everything. Procedures submitted late hold up mobilisation.

The app handles these with the features it has. Client variants are separate records with their own numbers, scopes and applicable standards, so the register shows which variant belongs to which client specification. Internal review comments are captured as rejection reasons, so the author sees exactly why a draft came back. Every resubmission is a new revision, and the snapshot of each revision shows what changed. Email reminders chase approvers so a procedure is not the thing holding up a turnaround crew. Tracking of the client’s own acceptance status, such as a transmittal number, can be added as part of the customization scope agreed with you.

Radiography: NRC, Agreement States and operating procedures

Radiography companies control two kinds of procedures. There are technique procedures for how radiographs are taken and interpreted, and there are radiation safety documents that the regulator requires before a source ever leaves the storage location.

Under NRC regulations in 10 CFR Part 34, industrial radiography licensees must have operating and emergency procedures covering how sources are handled, used, stored, transported and what happens in an emergency. Most Gulf Coast radiography companies are licensed by an Agreement State rather than by the NRC directly — Texas and Louisiana both run their own programmes with requirements compatible with the federal rules — but the principle is the same: written procedures, kept current, available to workers and inspectors.

Those documents belong under the same control as your technique procedures. In the Procedures app, radiation safety procedures sit in the register alongside RT and CR/DR technique procedures, with their own numbering, owner and approval chain, and the same locked revisions and history. When the Radiation Safety Officer revises the emergency procedure after a regulator inspection, the change goes through the workflow and the previous revision is preserved.

Related records live in the right places elsewhere in the ERP. The employee NDT profile in the Certificates app records radiation safety training and radiation badge number. The Fleet app records whether a vehicle can carry radioactive sources and its transport licence number and expiry. The Procedures app keeps the written rules those people and vehicles work under.

Aerospace: NAS 410 shops and prime specifications

Aerospace NDT runs to a stricter rhythm. Personnel are qualified under NAS 410, and the NDT process standards used across the industry — ASTM E1444 for magnetic particle and ASTM E1417 for liquid penetrant are typical examples — require examinations to follow written procedures. Prime contractors layer their own process specifications on top, and some require their approval of a supplier’s procedures or technique sheets before use. Accreditation audits for special processes look hard at procedure control: approval authority, revision status and evidence that the shop floor is using the current revision.

In an aerospace shop the approver is typically the responsible Level 3 for the method. The Certificates app records that person’s qualification — NAS 410 can be recorded under the “other” scheme with level, method and expiry — so you can see before routing a procedure that the approver’s qualification is current.

The Procedures app then provides the control auditors want to see: a register with method, scope, material, applicable specification and acceptance criteria; a draft to published workflow with prepared, reviewed and approved by names and dates; approved revisions locked; and a snapshot of each earlier revision. Technique sheets for specific part numbers can be held in the same register under a numbering convention that ties them to the parent procedure.

Many US NDT companies straddle both worlds, with an industrial field division and an aerospace lab. One register with clear numbering keeps the two libraries apart while giving the quality manager a single view.

How the workflow runs in a US shop: a worked example

Take a common situation. A refinery client on a B31.3 project wants to use ultrasonic examination instead of radiography on a batch of girth welds to avoid clearing the unit for exposures, and asks for a PAUT procedure that meets its specification.

1. Draft. Your Level II author creates a new procedure record: method PAUT, scope girth welds in the client’s diameter and thickness range, carbon steel, ASME Section V as the applicable standard, with the client’s acceptance criteria referenced. The app produces an AI-assisted first draft from those details, or a built-in template if the AI service is unavailable. The author edits in the specifics of your equipment, focal laws, scan plan and calibration.
2. Submitted and reviewed. The draft is submitted and the reviewer is notified by email. The reviewer finds the encoder and scan-overlap details thin and rejects it, with the reason recorded on the record.
3. Revised and approved. The author fixes the gaps and resubmits. Your Level III for UT, whose current certification is on record in the Certificates app, approves it. The approved revision locks.
4. Published. The procedure goes to the client package, and once the client accepts it, the crew works to it. Project tasks and NDT reports reference it by number and revision.

Three months later the client revises its specification. The procedure goes through the workflow again as a new revision, and the original is kept as a snapshot, so any report issued under the first revision still points to a procedure you can produce exactly as approved.

Connected to certifications, jobs and reports

Procedure control is only half the story in a US audit. The other half is showing that the people using the procedure were qualified. The Certificates app records SNT-TC-1A and CP-189 certifications, and ISO 9712, PCN or CSWIP certificates held by technicians who trained elsewhere, with level, method, expiry, OJT and training hours. Expiring and expired certificates are flagged automatically, and timesheets warn when a technician’s certificate is not valid.

The Project app carries procedure and WPS references on each inspection task, and the NDT Reports app captures procedure and standard references on each of its report types, with inspector, reviewer and approver signatures and a place for the Authorized Inspector or third-party inspector’s name and signature. Put together, the ERP ties the job, the procedure revision, the technician’s certificate and the signed report into one traceable record set. See the full list on the ERP apps overview.

For owner-users who want results in a spatial context, Atlantis offers Digital Twin Reporting Software, a separate companion product that places inspection results on a 3D model of the asset and works alongside the ERP’s NDT Reports app.

Implementation and Level III support

Implementation starts with your existing library. We list your procedures, revisions, methods and approvers, agree numbering and revision rules that match your quality manual and written practice, load the register, set up approvers and reminders, and run a live revision through the workflow with your team.

US-specific needs — fields for a client’s transmittal or acceptance status, separate sections for aerospace and industrial libraries, radiation safety documents with their own approval chain — are part of the customization scope agreed with you. The ERP is affordable, accessible and fully customizable, and pricing is quote on request.

If your procedures themselves need work — an ASME Section V gap review, a new PAUT or TOFD procedure for a client, or a full rewrite before an audit — Atlantis NDT provides procedure writing and review by ASNT Level III personnel through its NDT consulting services. Those procedures can then be controlled in the app from day one. Atlantis also runs SNT-TC-1A-based NDT training for Level I and Level II technicians.

Ready to see it? Book a Procedures demo for your US team.

Frequently asked questions

Does the app make our procedures ASME compliant?

No software makes a procedure compliant; the content does. The app records the applicable standard and acceptance criteria on each procedure, runs it through Level III review and approval, and keeps every revision, which is the control that code and client audits look for.

Can we handle client-specific versions of the same procedure?

Yes. Each client variant is its own record with its own number, scope and applicable standard, so the register shows exactly which version goes with which client specification.

Where do NRC or state radiation safety procedures go?

In the same register, with their own numbering and approval chain. They get the same workflow, locked approved revisions and revision history as technique procedures.

Can we record NAS 410 qualifications for aerospace approvers?

Yes. The Certificates app records schemes including SNT-TC-1A, CP-189 and ISO 9712, and NAS 410 can be recorded under the “other” scheme with level, method and expiry.

How do approvers know something is waiting?

They get email notifications and reminders for pending approvals, which helps when your Level III is travelling between sites.

Can Atlantis write the procedures as well?

Yes. Procedure writing and review by ASNT Level III personnel is available through Atlantis NDT consulting, and the finished procedures are loaded straight into the register.

Talk to us

Tell us which methods you run, which codes your clients work to and how many procedures you control today. We will show you the register, the approval workflow and the revision history using examples that look like your own library. Request a quote for the Procedures app and we will come back with a scope that fits your company.

Procedures by region

• Procedures global overview
• Procedures in Canada
• Procedures in UK & Europe
• Procedures in Middle East
• Procedures in India

Works with

• NDT Reports: Method-specific NDT inspection reports, captured in the field and issued from the ERP.
• Certificates: Technician certifications, eye tests and expiry tracking against your written practice.
• Dashboards: KPI dashboards across jobs, reports, certifications and revenue.

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